Part of Project Sputnik, these systems began as an open-ended exploratory project to identify what developers wanted in an ideal laptop. With the community’s input, Project Sputnik became an official product and continues to evolve. For more of the Sputnik story, including why this has become the perfect platform for Docker, see below.

Before getting into today’s details I would like to thank the entire community for their patience and support as we’ve made our way to launch.

The 5th gen XPS 13 developer edition

Preloaded with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Augmented with the necessary hardware drivers, tools and utilities

6th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors

InfinityEdge™ display, FHD and QHD+ versions available

Availability: United Sates (Both Canada and Europe are being readied for launch as we speak, stay tuned for more details.)

Configurations: We are starting out with three i7 configs and plan to add an i5 option. The i5 configuration will come with 8GB RAM, a 256GB SSD and FHD NT. The timing of the i5 config is dependent on the depletion of the current inventory on hand. — Update: i5 config available as of April 7

All of these XPS 13 developer edition configurations come with the Intel wireless card.

i7/8GB

256GB, QHD+T, Intel 8260

i7/16GB

512GB, QHD+T, Intel 8260

1TB, QHD+T, Intel 8260

i5/8GB

256GB, FHD NT, Intel 8260

The Ubuntu-based Precision mobile workstation line

The Precision mobile workstation line up is composed of four systems. Joining the Precision 5510, successor to the M3800, we have added the Precision 3510, 7510 and 7710 mobile workstations.

This represents our complete Precision mobile workstation portfolio. All of the systems below are fully configurable.

Dell™ Precision 5510, mobile workstation

Preloaded with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Next generation of the world’s thinnest and lightest true 15” mobile workstation

PremierColor™ 4K InfinityEdge™ display

Starting weight of just 3.93lbs (1.78kg) and a form factor that is less than 0.44” (11.1mm) thick

Ordering a Precision: To get to the Ubuntu option, click on the “Customize & Buy” button on the system landing page. Select Ubuntu Linux in the Operating System section and away you go!

Towers and racks too: In case you didn’t know, we also have a portfolio of fixed Precision workstations — tower and rack — that are available with Ubuntu.

OTA (Over-The-Air) Fixes

There were several minor fixes that were not available in time for launch but have been made available as over the air updates so make sure to run all Ubuntu updates. These fixes pertain to both the XPS 13 and Precisions.

16.04LTS

With regards to updates, although 16.04LTS will be shipping next month, we don’t have a date for when factory installation will become available. That being said, we do plan to support 16.04 LTS for those who choose to upgrade.

Project Sputnik — A quick history

How we turned a $40K investment into 10’s of millions of dollars in revenue by focusing on developers.

From humble beginnings

As many of you may know Project Sputnik, as this effort is called, originated with a pitch made to an internal innovation fund four years ago. The fund provided a small pot of money (the $40K mentioned above) and six months to see if the idea of a developer laptop would fly. A couple months after we had been given the green light, on May 7, 2012 we announced the project publically asking the community what they would like to see in a developer laptop.

A rough ISO was provided for people to kick the tires and folks were told that if we got enough interest we might be able to turn this project into a product. 10 weeks later, thanks to the amazing interest we received around our beta program, we got the OK to turn project Sputnik into an actual product and in November of 2012 the XPS 13 developer edition became available.

You say you want an evolution

As the project has evolved we have continued to solicit and incorporate feedback. Thanks to your support the XPS 13 developer edition has gone from one, to multiple configs.

On the higher end, we kept getting requests to add a larger system to the lineup. OS architect Jared Dominguez took note of this and spent a bunch of late nights putting together instructions on how to get Ubuntu running on the Precision M3800. From here interest kept mounting and a year later the Ubuntu-based M3800 became an official product. As of today this original workstation offering has expanded to four systems.

DevOps, Cloud launcher and Docker

One of the big ideas we had when we first kicked off project Sputnik was that it would be a DevOps platform. A key piece of this platform
would be a “cloud launcher” that would allow developers to create apps within “micro clouds” on their laptops and then deploy said apps to a public or private cloud. Unfortunately this turned out to be a lot more difficult than we had hoped and we put it on hold.

As luck would have it however, a couple of years later Docker serendipitously came along. Docker containers provide the functionality of our envisioned cloud launcher, allowing applications created locally to be pushed, as is, to the cloud. Because Docker containers run on Linux, with our Ubuntu-based systems, developers can run the containers natively rather than within a virtualized environment like they would on other platforms.

Forward march

Stay tuned to see how, with your support and input, project Sputnik will continue to evolve. Once again, thanks for all the support and stay tuned for the Canadian and European roll outs!

[…] are the highlights of the new XPS 13 Developer Edition? Well, Project Sputnik lead Barton George says that it can be had with sixth-generation Core i7 processors, with a Core i5 option also on the […]

When I saw this news I got really excited since I expected to have one/some of the following with the Developer editions of XPS

1) different hardware configuration options – like combining i7-6560 with FullHD screen (not sure if I really need QHD and certainly I don’t need the touch option), or possibly including i5-6260 instead of i7 for lower price.

2) lower price – since You don’t get M$ crap installed along with other productivity suites

I was in bit of a shock when I saw that price of the Dev edition is just 50$ lower than that Windows counterpart and only because of some ‘special’ offer, otherwise they are the same. WTF Dell?

So removing Windows and throwing in a Intel WiFi card is apparently worth sticking the same price tag? Bad, bad, policy. I believe I would rather stick with Windows edition and dual-boot it like all previous machines. Now I am somewhat scared to look at Precision offer not to be disappointed yet again.

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that vendors are finally including ‘high-end’ laptops with Ubuntu, or any other Linux for that matter, because there are lot of us who don’t really use Windows on a daily basis or do not want to have it pre-installed on the machine, but there should be more to it than different WiFi card and a 50 bucks discount.

[…] According to George Barton, who oversees Project Sputnik, the new XPS 13 developer edition lineup is available in the US only for now, but notes that Canadian and European models are in the works and should be available soon. […]

Will project “Sputnik” support a upgrade for the previous XPS13 (2015) too? The official Dell support in Germay doesn’t have information about upgrades. So say say “it isn’t supported to upgrade 14.04LTS to 16.04LTS” (after its release).

What are the steps to contact support about an issue with Ubuntu? I purchased a pre-announcement 5510 and having a USB issue trying to boot from LiveUSB, but first-line support were a bit dismissive of the issue (saying that Ubuntu is not supported and that I needed to get a USB 3.0 driver)

Just the regular way… Pick up your service tag and call the service. In my case I had a second possible way. Since we are a business customer, I can ask our “account manager” to contact the support. Dell want to sell devices, so this way is sometimes faster and may be more successful. 😉

So mainly wanted to say thanks for Sputnik and mention that the promise of future Linux support for the XPS 13 9350 is why I purchased mine two weeks ago. Sorry if it counts as a Win10 sale and not a DE sale, I got tired of waiting. 😉

I’m in the same boat – I needed to get a computer for work and couldn’t wait, but I chose the Precision 5510 over the XPS 15 and other competitors due to the promise of future Linux support. Thanks to Sputnik for all your work!

firstly, thanks and respect to the whole sputnik team for the effort spreading linux on these nifty devices.

Secondly, there are some questions i have:
-Is there an ETA for the XPS 13 ubuntu series for Europe / Germany?
-Will devices like the thunderbolt dock TB15 or similar devices be supported under ubuntu too?

Picked up an XPS13 9343 when they were announced last Spring. Been tracking the updates from you and Dell’s support page for the keyboard jump issue. A07 has not fixed the problem and the last update was in November.

Is there anyone you recommend on the Dell Pro Support team that can help straighten this out?

Thanks in advance! Big fan of the design of these notebooks and your work with Ubuntu.

I can’t buy the Developer Edition although I’d like to. If I buy a regular New XPS 13 (non Developer Edition) and then I install it the Ubuntu developer Edition (like in this link https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/SLN297060/en/) will it be exactely the same? or the Developer Edition has any different software to make it more compatible with Ubuntu?

I bought a Precision 5510 Ubuntu edition, have waited for two weeks. Today, after an upgrade from clean (and updated) 14:04 to 16:04 I can’t log into Unity since it’s constantly crashing.
This is soooo frustrating 😦 !

It would be really cool, if you would provide more detailed upgrade instructions. Please, please, please.

[…] According to Barton George, who oversees Project Sputnik, the new XPS 13 developer edition lineup is available in the US only for now, but notes that Canadian and European models are in the works and should be available soon. […]

I purchased the new i5 Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition and it has been a disaster. Suspend/resume doesn’t work out of the box (among other things). I’m working with tech support right now but will probably ask for a refund at this point and just go with System76 or another vendor even though their hardware isn’t as nice as Dell. It’s been a very big disappointment. If Developer Edition comes with Ubuntu pre-installed, I expect suspend/resume to work out of the box.

All my issues have been resolved 🙂 For the record: just install 16.04 LTS when you get your new XPS13. 16.04 has the 4.4 kernel with native Skylake support. Everything works flawlessly with it and without any additional configuration.

What’s the verdict on video out on the XPS 13 9350 with Linux? I’m finding tons of mixed results on that Type-C port. This is the only thing stopping me from getting one is that uncertainty (as I really need to be able to do HDMI/VGA out, and want that gigabit LAN).

Will the update to 16.04 LTS also be possible for owner of the 2015er model (9343) of the XPS13? It would be very interesting to get an answer here. Are there any experiences with an “unofficial” update? Thanks.

We still have a ways to go before we EOL the current dev edition. What country are you in and how did you contact support? (I want to investigate this so we can hopefully avoid this miscommunication in the future)

I’m in the U.S. I was talking with a supervisor (who’s name I can send you if needed) who called me after a small business support chat when I was asking about a XPS discount code.

He has since send me a quote with linux listed after I made it clear I wasn’t interested in a windows version. But it did make me start to feel uneasy about future support. I’m glad to hear the Developer Edition isn’t going away any time soon.

I ordered the top XPS 13 model begin of August. Immediately after sending the BitCoin, I received an eMail from dell, that I should receive an official order confirmation after two days the least. Twenty days later, I have still not received any further communication from Dell. As the order is not registered in the system, I am unable to contact support.
So essentially my money is gone and I don’t even know if I will receive anything in return.
Somebody on the forum indicated that the order might have been cancelled because it was intended for export. But even if that is the case, keeping the money without notifying the customer is about the worst thing a company could do.

@ulrichard I apologize once again for your experience. I sent a note out to the team last week to figure out how get this fixed, I also brought it up in yesterday’s team meeting. I will follow up again now. stay tuned